The invention relates to a disc changer for bringing disc-shaped information carriers into and out of a position. The disc changer includes a supporting body and a disc-shaped disc support, supported by the supporting body, movable relative to said body, and rotatable about an axis of rotation. The disc support has supporting surfaces for said information carriers and a first toothed ring which extends around said axis of rotation and is not rotatable relative to the disc support. The toothed ring is adapted to cooperate with a second toothed ring which extends around an axis of the supporting body. The axis of the supporting body extends parallel to and at a distance from the axis of rotation. The disc changer further including apparatus for rotating and guiding the disc support.
The invention further relates to a disc player including a scanning device having apparatus for inscribing and/or reading disc-shaped information carriers and a turntable which is rotatable about an axis of rotation, for supporting an information carrier which is in a scanning position. The disc player also includes a disc changer for moving said information carriers into and out of the position related to the scanning position.
A disc player with an integrated disc changer is known from JP-A 5-182337 hereby incorporated in whole by reference. The known player has a housing and a drawer which is movable into and out of the housing and is supported in the frame, which drawer is constructed as a disc changer. The housing accommodates a scanning device with an optical unit for scanning a Compact Disc and a turntable for supporting and rotating the Compact Disc. The drawer has a supporting body carrying a disc-shaped disc support with three supporting surfaces for Compact Discs. The disc support has a peripheral edge whose shape differs from a circular shape and having three flattened edge portions which extend from one supporting surface to another supporting surface. The disc changer thus formed is rotatable relative to the supporting body. For this purpose the drawer has a toothed driving wheel in mesh with a toothed ring of the disc support, a rotatable guide disc with an eccentric guide shaft and fixed guide walls. The toothed driving wheel and the guide disc, which is freely rotatable relative to the toothed wheel, are both rotatable about a common shaft which is fixed relative to the supporting body. The eccentric guide shaft extends through a central opening in the disc support, the guide walls cooperating with the peripheral edge of the disc support. A disadvantage of the known disc changer is that it requires a comparatively large number of parts to realise the desired movements of the disc support. Moreover, the comparatively large toothed driving wheel occupies much space, which is undesirable in modern compact equipment. The guide walls needed in the known disc changer serve to keep the disc changer in a desired path during rotation and in desired end positions in a condition of rest. A disadvantage of the construction using a toothed driving wheel and a freely rotatable guide disc is that despite the fixed guide walls no accurately defined end positions are possible owing to the possibility of rotation of the toothed wheel and the guide disc relative to one another and the presence of play between the peripheral edge of the disc support and the fixed guide walls. In the known disc player the end positions are detected by detection means, as disclosed in JP-A 5-182339 hereby incorporated in whole by reference. Another disadvantage of the guide construction used in the known disc changer is that rotation of the disc support produces relatively much noise and the play in the end positions of the disc changer is so large that the disc support is movable over a considerable range.